All the Ashes in My Wake
by fictionalheart
Summary: "He meets her in a London bar fourteen hundred years into his life." Morgana finds Merlin in a dimly-lit bar and centuries worth of angst and lust ensue. Merlin/Morgana. Reincarnation AU.


**A/N:** I never thought this day would come either. But then some of us started talking about how problematic some Mergana things are and how they need _consensual,_ angsty smut. And then thesleepysiren and I came up with an "Arsonist's Lullaby, dimly lit bars, La Perla lookbooks" prompt, and decided I would write a fic and she would make an edit. So here we are. Thank you to thesleepysiren and LyreBoleyne for making sure I kept things angsty and to tkross for reading this over.

 **Disclaimer** : Merlin belongs to the BBC, and the title comes from Hozier's "Arsonist's Lullaby," as does the quoted stanza below.

* * *

 _When I was a man I thought it ended_  
 _When I knew love's perfect ache_  
 _But my peace has always depended_  
 _On all the ashes in my wake_

He meets her in a London bar fourteen hundred years into his life. He knows every inch of the city, every piece of history that belongs to every building, and yet he's lost. Bells clang, time passes, and he's alone. Always alone.

It's been over sixty years now since he's seen any of them alive, two hundred since Morgana, an eternity since Arthur or Gwen.

Their faces have faded over time, and as he empties the bottom of his glass, smooth, golden liquid gliding down his hoarse, miserable throat, he begins to think he'll fail to recognize them if they ever come back.

He nearly doesn't.

She walks in as the rest of the customers begin to leave, a whirl of black lace and glistening dark hair he dismisses as part of his imagination. He sees glimpses of them, of _her_ from the corners of his eyes wherever he goes, and he knows now that it won't be long before his mind follows his powers and leaves him for good.

She's clearest to him, even now. The rest have come back once, maybe twice since their days in Camelot, never knowing, never remembering. He approaches and befriends them as he can, fighting beside them in wars, against them in parlors and taverns, but they never share his memories, his pain. He's never more than a stranger who's become a friendly face.

Except for her.

She's reborn every century, always different, always the same. He finds her, drawn to her with his magic no matter where she is, and her memories always return in vivid, painful dreams, everything he's ever done clinging to her consciousness when she opens her eyes.

Sometimes dark, sometimes light, they spend lifetimes trading roles, retracing, fighting the past.

Second, third, fourth lives making up for her first, begging for mutual atonement. All of the ones since then wanting to love her as he never could.

Even after the last one had ended badly.

Even after he'd gone back on his word and betrayed her.

Even after she'd stabbed him in the back as he'd gone down on his knees to beg for forgiveness.

It's been centuries since he's seen her, and still her whispered words of getting even and her raspy " _I hope your heart breaks_." echo in his ears.

Still he wants to, _needs_ to see her, needs to set things right. Even though it's been ages since he's been able to find her. Even though, now, without his magic to guide the way, he's lost hope that he ever will again.

But then he drains his third glass of the night and the air around him takes on a peppery, woodsy scent.

He blinks heavy eyelids and raises his hand to order another drink. The smell brings on memories of the Darkling Woods and, helpless, he wants to forget before the visions fill him with further guilt and misery.

The bartender brings him another, and a soft, throaty voice sounds beside him, ordering a dry martini and sending warm, burning ice rushing through his veins.

Holding his breath, he turns his head towards the voice. Floral notes mix into the woodsy scent and his gaze lands on green eyes that pierce through his whiskied haze and go straight for his soul. He swallows thickly, and blood red lips curl into a sardonic smirk.

"It took you long enough."

* * *

"Morgana," he rasps out as she takes him in.

He doesn't seem to be thriving in the twenty-first century, but it seems to be taking to him. Unruly, coffee coloured locks frame his face, and scruff covers his cheeks and his upper lip for the first time in centuries, for the first time since the all-consuming rage that had run through her veins had turned to desire.

She'd dreamt of their every encounter through the centuries, as friends and foes and friends again, and her eyes take on a mischievous glint as she imagines how it'll finally feel to take them where they've always desperately wanted to go.

"Merlin," she purrs. "It was kind of you to finally let yourself be found."

It's been months since her memories had finishing filling in, years since she'd woken with poison on her lips and his name at the tip of her tongue.

Lifetimes since she'd set out to find him and set things right.

Without magic. Without help.

"You've been looking for me?" he asks

She takes a sip of her martini, drawing out her time. The sharp liquid cools her throat and fills her with a comforting warmth.

"I figured you wouldn't be coming for me this time."

Merlin coughs, eyes darkening. "I didn't realize you were alive. I didn't think you ever would be again."

She raises one, sharp eyebrow.

"It's been two hundred years, Morgana."

"You gave up on me."

He chokes out an anguished, "No." and she watches his face contort as he objects. He looks much the same, barely over thirty and nowhere near thirteen hundred and so, but thin lines crease the corners of his eyes, and she knows he feels the overpowering weight of his age.

Hooded eyelids blink before her, and he adds, "Never."

She wants to believe him. She lays her hands on the bar, barely away from his glass. He grips the crystal tighter, but his pinky flexes and reaches out, barely grazing hers before she moves it away, keeping the millimeters between them.

"Well then where the hell have you been? I'm _twenty-eight_ , this time around, Merlin. I've had my memory back for _years_."

He shakes his head, and unruly locks fall into his eyes as he looks down into his glass. "I couldn't… I thought you weren't coming back."

She huffs. "I've been back three times. This was my third lifetime without you, Merlin. You owe me the truth, for fuck's sake. You gave up on me."

She watches his face fall as she speaks, watches as his grip grows tighter and tighter around the glass.

"No," he growls at last. "It wasn't like that. I would _never_ give up on you, Morgana. Not again. I would have stopped at nothing to get to you if I'd known where you were, if I'd even known that you were alive."

"You're _lying_ ," she spits.

His grip tightens and the crystal finally gives way, shattering and slicing his palm. Blood mixes with the golden whisky and the little, sparkling shards of glass, glistening on the polished countertop.

Before the bartender can turn around, she fixates on the mess until she feels the bubbling warmth flooding through her body. Her eyes glow amber and the crystal reshapes before them while the liquid evaporates.

"Give me your hand."

He ignores her, unblinkingly stares at the seemingly new crystal in front of him.

" _Merlin_."

She reaches for his hand and takes it in hers, featherlight.

She'd never come back with magic before this, and the tension between them crackles as she gently picks out the shards and places her hand over his. The warmth that rushes through them is half healing magic, half desire, and she feels his pulse speed up along with hers.

"That's how you found me," he rasps.

She nods and squeezes his healed hand. She can't help the smile that fights its way through her pursed lips, and she lets it spread across her face.

They've wished for this for centuries, knowing that this might be it, that her magical reincarnation might be her last life, her long life, the one in which they would never have to part.

She's dreamt of this, of telling him, of watching his piercing smile overcome his face and of finally embracing him in their joy. Instead he stares at their joint hands and lets go, the angry set of his jaw suggesting that his eyes shimmer not with joy but with tears.

He swallows and shakes his head. "It's too late. I think my time is coming."

She blinks, feeling every muscle in her face relax as her smile fades and her mind goes blank. "What are you talking about?"

He turns to face her then, blue eyes dark with anger and fear. "I've lost my magic."

She laughs. "You can't have. You're the greatest warlock of your time."

"It's been coming for over a century. It started with little things. Spells I'd mastered long ago… but I can't do anything anymore."

Morgana's eyes flicker as the meaning behind his words hits her. "That's why you didn't find me."

He swallows thickly and lifts his hand as if to reach for her before dropping it in the space between them. "I never would have let you go, Morgana. Even after…"

She nods, looking down, thankful when her hair begins to fall before her. "I suppose it doesn't matter now that I've found you."

"No."

She reaches for his hand, then, all thoughts of anger forgotten and filled instead with the fear that he'll leave her to the fate he's suffered through for so long. She intertwines their fingers and squeezes, no longer wanting any space between them.

* * *

They stay until closing and leave just as thunder rolls and warns them of the coming summer storm.

They walk down the street, hand in hand, neither wanting to let go, both needing to cling to the other, as if the touch of their skin will keep all of time and space from collapsing around them, from dangling their desires in front of their eyes before taking them away once and for all.

Morgana's head spins as she replays Merlin's words in her head until they echo through all planes of her consciousness.

 _I've lost my magic. I've lost my magic. I've lost my magic_.

She wants to eradicate them and take away their meaning. She wants to extricate the tendrils of magic that run through her body and pass them on to Merlin, sharing what once kept him alive and always kept them together.

Through the centuries. Through the millennia.

She's been angry for years, at him, at herself, at the world for keeping them apart, but she knows as well as she knows that she needs air to pass through her lungs that she needs him in her life. Light, dark. Hatred, love. They're two halves of one whole, and she refuses to infinitely go on without him.

She acts then, tugging on their joint hands just as the first drops begin to fall. She tugs and pulls Merlin towards her until her back presses against the wall, lace-clad skin against rough brick. The air between them fills with palpable tension, time slowing down as she feels him magnetically drawing closer.

The moments he hovers in front of her, dropping her hand to brace himself against the wall, last longer they should, and as her breathing quickens, she wonders if her magic is behind it, torturing her when all she wants is for Merlin to press her against the wall and capture her lips. He splays his fingers against the bricks beside her head and drops his other hand to her waist, gripping her as if she hadn't been the one to drag him off the sidewalk.

She feels her eyes begin to cross with desire as they flicker from his darkening eyes to his lips. Shivers run through her as she imagines the feel of his scruff against her lips, her cheeks, her neck. She loops her arms around his neck to urge him the rest of the way down to her, and as his grasp around her tightens and his mouth curls upward, she brushes her lips against his.

Centuries of hidden desire come to the surface then, and she sees a different Merlin she's known and hated and wanted to love every time his lips move against hers, firm and insistent.

The kiss is everything she's ever wanted it to be, heated and reverent and a little bit desperate.

And yet, nowhere near enough.

She slips her fingers into his hair, knotting them around his unruly locks to tug him closer and coax his mouth open. He comes readily, and as her tongue brushes his, she shudders, needing him closer still. She arches her back so that she's flush against him, hips and centers aligned. Merlin moans into her mouth at the contact and digs his fingers into the small of her back.

She melts into his kiss, losing track of time and space, indifferent to the ice cold drops of rain that fall against their flushed skin, indifferent to everything but the feel of Merlin's lips and tongue and body against her, hard and insistent, driving all capability of thought aside until they break apart, gasping for air they don't want but need.

The rain makes itself known then, cold and clinging, soaking through their hair and clothes

"I live around the corner," Merlin rasps. "If you –"

"I do."

* * *

They barely make it in the door before Merlin has her in his arms and carries her to his bed. He lowers her gently, cursing himself for the mess he's left behind. No sooner does her head hit the pillow than she pulls him down to her, willing the rain water to evaporate and his layers of shirts to disappear. She grins when she feels her hair and her clothes dry and watches as Merlin hovers above her, bare beneath her fingertips.

"Not fair," he growls, lowering himself to bury his face in the crook of her neck. He locates her pulse point and brushes his lips against it, once, twice, before beginning to suck. Shivers of pleasure run through her at the soft, hot feeling of his lips and his tongue against her, and she shudders.

She wants, _needs_ to feel him closer.

Digging her nails into his back, she moans and gathers what she can of her thoughts. The rest of her and Merlin's clothes clatter to the floor along with her heels as she magicks away all but the black lace set she's wearing.

Merlin tears his lips from her neck and he thinks he might stop breathing as he takes in her lace-clad body. "That still isn't fair," he rasps.

"Isn't it?" she grins and loops her leg around him to pull him flush against her. He's already painfully hard and as she places his hands on the small of her back and leans up to whisper into his ear, she feels her own breathing shallow. "You'll just have to take the rest of it off yourself."

He slips his fingers beneath the lace panels of her bustier at that and encircles her waist with his hands, wishing he could make the garment disappear. The lace is soft against his chest as she presses into him and he recaptures her mouth with his. He runs his tongue over the seam of her lips, and she opens up almost instantly. Soft noises sound from the back of her throat and he ruts against her, feeling his patience wearing extremely thin.

Satin bows come to hand as he fidgets with the back of her bustier and he struggles to untie them until Morgana clasps her fingers over his and leads him to a delicately hidden zipper. Grinning woolfishly, he undoes the side of the garment.

Morgana lays back against the pillow as he finally, finally lays the bustier aside and closes her eyes. It isn't a moment too soon when she feels his beard brush against her right breast before his tongue darts out to swirl around her nipple. She gasps and arches her back, causing him to smile against her.

For all the centuries they've spent together and apart, she doesn't understand how they'd never succumbed to this before. She's wanted to know the feeling of his lips on every inch of her skin since he'd first caught her attention in Camelot, all gangly limbs and innocence and her desire had only built in the years that had followed. Impatience mixes with the need deep in her abdomen as he moves to her other breast, taking his time and kneading the other. She grinds her hips up against him, desperate to relieve the throbbing between her legs, and leads the hand he has knotted through hers to the lace waistband of her knickers.

He doesn't hesitate, releasing her breast with a kiss, and moves down to free her of the last remaining bit of clothing between them. He loops the black lace over her ankles and begins to trail a line of kisses up her legs, reverently slowing down as he reaches the inside of her writhes as he gently parts her folds and knots her fingers through his hair when she feels his breath against her. She tugs gently, just as his lips close over her and send jolts of pleasure shooting through her. She tugs again and he lets go, looking up at her questioningly, eyebrows raised and mouth curved.

"Later, please," she begs, hoarsely and pulls him back up.

He comes willingly and captures her mouth in another kiss. Every stroke of his lips is gentle and oddly chaste as he aligns himself with her opening. He pulls back, his darkening eyes searching hers for consent. He's wanted this for so, so long, and they've faced so, so many obstacles that he can't bear any misunderstanding. She smiles against his lips, lifting her hips to urge him on, and he sinks into her then, causing them to sigh in tandem with centuries worth of relief.

It's then that she hears him groan, not in her ear but in her head.

It's as they begin to move that his thoughts mesh with hers.

All desperate love and years and years and years worth of lust.

Years and years and years worth of regret.

Her eyes fill at the thought that this might be the end when they'd always hoped it would only be the beginning.

He slows then, gently brushing against her lips and mixing promises in with his kisses, vows in with his thoughts.

It's as they move together that they relearn the meaning of hope, as the tension mounts that they find determination.

As they topple over the edge that the world seems to shatter and golden coils shoot through Morgana and into Merlin, causing both of their eyes to glow before they roll back.

As they collapse against each other that Merlin mumbles words of love into her mind.

As they drift off to sleep that they finally feel peace.


End file.
